


An Urbaner's Paradise

by IWasMisunderstood



Category: Original Work
Genre: New York City, Original Character(s), Suburbia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 03:22:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWasMisunderstood/pseuds/IWasMisunderstood
Summary: A short story about the city and the suburbs. We watch two best friends, Nicole and Jason, maintain their friendship while living in different places- Nicole in New York City and Jason in the Suburbs. An outside narrator reflects on the contrast between both settings.





	An Urbaner's Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I wrote this story for my awesome friend who lives in the Suburbs as a New Years present, and (after changing the names) decided to post it here. The story is written as a Narrative/Short Story, so the style is a bit strange- I was experimenting with it a lot and I think it turned out pretty well. This is my first story on Ao3, so tear it apart if you want but just keep that in mind. Thanks, and enjoy the read!

Suburbia. A city kid’s paradise. Where the houses have stairs and there’s front yards and back yards and the trees have nothing to prove. It’s a simple, flat plane whitewashed with beige, and to an outsider, everything looks simple.

The city is an explosion of color, with murals throwing punches at random and unique styles slapping you with statements. Everything has something to prove, and all that purpose in one place forms the current they lace between the sidewalk squares. Buildings crash upwards, concrete middle fingers boldly flipping off the sky.

 

_Nicole took her phone out of her pocket to snap a picture of the beautiful street art as she passed. Painted balloons rose up the side of a small building, yellow circles with exed out eyes guarding the streets of lower Manhattan. The artist was incredibly talented, and she could almost hear the crinkle of the foil balloons as they crept up the brick wall. Smiling, she cupped her phone in her hands and sent the photo to Jason. She continued down the sidewalk, admiring the cobblestone roads of lower Manhattan, and silently cursing herself for wearing heeled boots for her little venture into SoHo. Earbuds tamely blasting Boulevard of Broken Dreams, she crossed the street and stood in front of her destination. Sunshine Mart._

_She browsed the small store, snatching little Asian candies off the shelves and dropping them into her shopping cart. There was so much to choose from- Jason had told her before about their love of foreign candy. There was something they’d mentioned in last night’s Discord call, a build-it-yourself candy kit she remembered buying from the Asian grocers when she was little. Popin’ Cookin’- that’s what it was called._

_She looked around the store, scanning the shelves decorated with Japanese characters and commercial colors. The packages were all so colorful and interesting- no wonder Jason loves this stuff. They’d told her they couldn’t get any in their town, so she figured she’d just bring it to them. (Bring being a figurative term. She was going to send it in the mail)._

_She went down the aisle, stopping when she found the Popin’ Cookin’ display. She pulled three of the boxes off the shelves- a sushi kit, because Jason loved sushi, a ramen kit, because it looked like fun, and an ice cream kit for herself, because it looked easy._

_She left ten minutes later with an empty wallet and a plastic shopping bag full of Asian candy. Jason was going to be thrilled._

_-October 30th, 2018_

 

It’s stupid, of course, and if we chose to have children we wouldn’t raise them in cages of white picket fencing. But every city kid, at some point in our lives, has silently wished for the normal-ness of the suburbs. If the city is a gospel, the suburbs are a prayer. We’d go to a rectangular brick of a high school in our romantically boring little town and have nowhere to go when classes are over. We’d surf through junior high on a wave of strawberry lip gloss and axe body spray, and the taste of fresh, creamy farmers-market brie would be foreign to our tongues.

The Suburbs are comfortable- to a group of kids who have never gotten the opportunity to familiarize themselves with ‘Normal,’ the concept is easy to romanticize. We associate peace and calm with normalcy, a more ordinary and accessible sense of purpose. We would not have to compete for the right to occupy the sidewalk. Growing up, we see all the hipsters, old new yorkers, young parents and business people who have sacrificed a lot to earn their place in the city, and we can’t help but wonder what we’ve done to deserve our home.

In the suburbs, we would be born into Normalcy. We wouldn’t have to earn a spot in order to belong.

 

_“When I come to New York, you’re taking me to all the little coffee shops,” Jason mumbled, already half asleep. They played with the corner of their blanket as an equally sleepy Nicole talked through the phone._

_“Hell yeah. There’s this place about a block from my apartment called OST. You’d love it there. They do this thing, where every week...” Jason hummed as Nicole went on to describe their almost-stale pastries and how it was apparently a ‘Grand Street Delicacy.’ They could feel their eyelids drooping, and they spaced off, staring at a blank spot on their green-painted wall. Jason relaxed onto their pillow. Nicole’s voice always helped them fall asleep._

_They tried to think of things they’d show Nicole when she came._

_‘She’d probably be excited by every blade of grass, the idiot,’ Jason thought fondly to themselves. Maybe the Menorah and Christmas tree in the window of the new Anthropologie. Yeah, she’d like that. Jason closed their eyes as they let Nicole’s voice lull them to sleep. She’d definitely like it._

_-Thanksgiving Weekend, 2018_

It’s a very specific brand of city kids who think this way- we're the ones who have grown up here, the veterans of seven dollar iced coffees and crossing guards clad in neon yellow armor. As babies we were pushed in strollers on long walks through the city, our very first role models the concrete skyscrapers that used to stretch to infinity. We chased pigeons like other kids chased Subarus, and as we grow, we earn our place on the crosswalk. Many frown at our upbringing, claiming the ‘dangerous’ city is no place for children, but when you’ve greeted the friendly crossing guards at the end of your block since you were three and taken the M14a with your dad since you started school, you know your home is about as dangerous as the missing gloves strewn about the city like fallen leaves.

 

_“Were getting bubble tea,” Nicole spoke into the receiver as she hopped off the M14d and onto the curb. She had about twenty minutes until she had to head over to Hebrew School for her Wednesday teaching gig, and she always got bubble tea beforehand._

_“What kind am I getting?”_

_“I dunno.” Jason’s voice crackled from her phone. “What do you usually get?”_

_“Grapefruit Yakult, and it’s the best, and you can fight me,” Nicole said, skipping her words like stones on still waters. She walked down fourteenth street, digging in her bag for her wallet._

_The little bells on the door jingled as she stepped into Pa Tea, wallet in her hand and phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear. The shop was tiny, with large windows facing out into the street and post-its with doodles, quotes, and messages flaking off the walls. There was a counter in the back with tall bar stools where Nicole usually sat._

_“One Large Grapefruit Yakult, Please,” Nicole said, handing the woman behind the register a ten dollar bill._

_“Oh, and could I have a few post-its?”_

_She took her change and post-its, thanked the woman, and shuffled to the back of the shop to wait for her bubble tea. Nicole plopped her phone on the counter and pulled up a chair._

_“Okay, what am I writing today?”_

_“Ezra Miller Is Sirius Black In Disguise.”_

_“...Dude. That makes way too much sense.”_

_“I know, right!” Nicole grinned as she scribbled on the obnoxiously orange post-it, writing in fun fonts with her pen. She dated the bottom right corner of the post-it and stuck it to the top of the wall, along with all her and Jason’s other ‘words of wisdom’._

_“Large Grapefruit Yakult,” called the woman at the register, and Nicole dashed to the front of the store to grab her drink. She thanked the lady, went back to the counter, snapped a picture of the new post-it, and gathered her stuff to go._

_Nicole sent the picture to Jason as she left the shop, rounding the corner and heading to Hebrew School. She chatted with Jason as they told her about their day, and she told them about hers. Nicole cut through a public park to get to Shul, passing dazed stoners lounging on park benches and bold city squirrels darting around her ankles. A warm and happy feeling settled over her as she walked, a specific sense of calm and purpouse she only felt when talking to Jason._

_They both said goodbye and Nicole pocketed her phone, holding it in her pocket as she passed through security and into Hebrew School._

_‘Wednesdays are nice,’ she thought as she sipped her bubble tea. Very nice._

_-November 14th, 2018. Happy Birthday!_

 

As much as we romanticize the suburbs, our city is still _our city,_ and we like having more than three types of cream cheese to choose from, thank you very much. We like being a little snobbish about obscure New York things, and we like the hint of pride in our voices when we say “Yeah, I’m from Manhattan/The Bronx/Staten Island/Brooklyn/Queens.” It makes us interesting to outsiders, and it’s a big enough statement to hide the miniscule glint of envy in our eyes when they say “Cool, I’m from Rhode Island.”

 

_“What? There are way more than three types of cream cheese,” She exclaimed, hot cocoa sloshing in the paper cup she was holding. “Dude. There’s sun-dried tomato, and salmon, and birthday cake. Chocolate, jalepeño, blueberry… When I take you to the city someday, I’ll show you.” She said, setting her cup down on the wooden table._

_“Dude, there’s regular, scallion, and vegetable,” Jason argued, reaching for their Boston creme donut. “That’s what they have at the supermarket.” They bit into the donut, closing their eyes as they chewed. “Mmm. Camp donuts are the best.”_

_“True that,” Nicole said, sipping her cocoa. “MMM! Speaking of donuts, I have to show you this place-”_

_“Whatever weird, obscure New York thing is about to come out of your mouth, save it for when I’m there,” said Jason, smiling as they munched their donut. Nicole grinned._

_“Fine. But I’m taking you anyway.”_

_-Mid-August, s3 2018._

 

We feign disinterest when we hear about suburban life. We secretly envy the banality of it, the simple way we think people are allowed to go about their lives. We would never want to move there (just _try_ and take us away from our city, see what’ll happen) but we like the idea of a normal upbringing. We daydream about pep rallies and driving to school in the family car that smells just a little bit funky, and there’s something vaguely alluring about mowing the lawn.

 

_The video played from her phone, crappy graphics making the screen so pixelated she could barely make out the individual Poms in the middle of the gym. The audio was flooded with cheering, stomping, clapping and all the other miscellaneous noises borne from a gymnasium full of hyped-up high-schoolers. She couldn’t hear the song that the Poms were dancing to- she couldn’t even distinguish a routine from the blurry, pixelated mess. In her eyes, it was brilliant._

_“I’m glad you think so,” Jason said, the undertones of pride evident in their voice. “The Poms are insane. Can you see the routine? I know it’s kinda sucky quality.”_

_“Yeah, I can see,” Nicole said (you know… like a liar). But it didn’t really matter whether she could see the Poms or not. The camera turned to face Jason with their friends, and their friend flashed peace signs at the camera. She leaned over her phone, watching with rapt attention as she tried to absorb the video like a sponge, soaking in all the little details. The color of the bleachers (blue). Jason’s friend’s shirt (grey). How big the gymnasium was (pretty darn big). She drank it up like a San Pelligrino in the heat of summer, greedily trying gulp it all down._

_“There’s another video somewhere,” said Jason, grinning at Nicole’s weird, inscrutable love for the suburbs. They rolled their eyes affectionately as they sent the nest video from the pep rally. This one was of the drum team, something Nicole hadn’t even known existed until they’d explained it to her. They followed up the video with a couple pictures of their friends, and Nicole beamed as she scrolled through the photos. Pep rallies seemed fracking awesome._

_-November 17th, 2018._

 

There’s something embarrassingly satisfying about thinking of unlearning everything we know. Rewinding until we forget the pebbles in our shoes, the deli sandwiches wrapped in silver paper, the black spots of gum on the sidewalk making trash-can constellations under busy feet. It would be so easy to start over, but we’d been raised by the cracks in the sidewalk not to take what we have for granted. We know the scraggly potted plants on our fire escapes are beautiful in their own right, because only they can grow between ashy bricks. Suburban flower bushes are beautiful, and we are strong.

Still, sometimes the city asks a little more of us than we can give. It’s hidden in the ways that empty alleyways can make you cross the street, and how after dark we clutch our keys in our hands and shiver even when it’s not cold. It’s hidden in the used condoms that litter public parks and the small ziplock baggies we would pick off the ground when we were kids because we didn’t know any better. It lingers in the back of all of our minds, that our home is not as safe as we pretend to believe it is.

 

_“Someone's on the Williamsburg.”_

_“Like, the bridge?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_…_

_“I hope they're okay.”_

_“Me too.”_

_…_

_“They got down.”_

_-Mid-September, 2018._

 

Skyscrapers are not imperious; trimmed lawns are not banal.

Neither the city or the suburbs are ineradicable-

They rise and fall like the tide.

We don’t admire the city for its adrenaline-

We don’t respect the suburbs for its permanence.

_We appreciate them because one feels homey, and one is home._

 

_Nicole finished typing, leaning back in her chair to look upon her work with pride. She hoped Jason would like their New Year's present. She hoped it would make them happy. She wrote it for them, after all._


End file.
